The OpenNode Management service, or OMS, is used to administer OpenNode via a web based GUI. The OMS is not installed by default and has to be added after installation. The OMS is not installed as a package using yum, but instead is a hosted OpenVZ container. The container is then registered with the OpenNode system and can then be used to administer it.

OpenNode also has a TUI, this is a text based management utility which can be used to create and manage new virtual machines and help you install the OMS.

Login to your OpenNode ssh session and run the opennode command to start the TUI.

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opennode

Select OMS (beta) on the right to be given a set of options for getting the OMS up and running.

Select Download OMS image and press ENTER.

Select Yes to start downloading the OMS virtual machine archive.

The download may take a while. If you quit the download and restart it, it will resume where it left off and not download the same part of the file twice.

Press OK when the download completes.

Back in the main menu, select Install OMS image to open the settings for the new virtual machine. You will need to enter the following settings

VSwap size (GB): set to 1GB

Number of CPUs: set to two. The OMS can be quite CPU hungry when performing certain tasks.

CPU usage limit (%): set to 100% to allow all of the assigned CPU to be used.

Disk size (GB): as very little is stored on the OMS root device you will not need to assign it much space. 5GB should be sufficient.

IO Priority: although very little IO will occur on the OMS container, it is best to give it the priority over other containers.

Hostname: set this to the hostname you would like to use for the OMS container.

IP-address: set this to the IP address for the container to use.

Nameserver: set this to the IP address of your networks DNS server.

Root password: enter a password which the OMS container will use for it’s root account. This is not the password which will be used to access the web GUI.

Root password x2: Repeat your password to confirm it.

Start VM select this and press SPACE to start the container after it has been created.

Start on boot select this and press SPACE to enable the container to start up after your OpenNode server starts up after a reboot.

Click Create VM once you have entered all the required settings.

You will be taken back to the OpenNode Management Service (OMS) operations menu when your container has been created and started. The final step is to register the OMS with the OpenNode server. Select Register with OMS and enter the OMS server address – this is the IP you just created in the above step. Make sure the OMS server port remains on the default of 4506.

You can now log into your OMS web administration with the below username and password. The URL to use is the IP address you created when creating the container for the OMS. You must also access the page over HTTPS, for example https://10.10.10.8

Installing OpenNode is much like installing any other modern Linux distribution. You start with a text based installer to configure some of the basic options, such as netwokring, then you are presented with a GUI to complete the install.

Download the ISO from the OpenNode website and burn it to a CD, or mount the ISO on your virtual machine.

Minimum (for testing)

The first screen you wil see when you boot the install CD is the boot menu. Press ENTER to start the install with default settings. You can use advanced boot options which are coved on my other blog post.

You will now need to specify your network settings. Move around this screen using the arrow keys and pressing SPACE on the item to enable. You will notice an asterix (*) next to each item which is enabled. Select Manual Configuration for IPv4 and disable Enable IPv6 support.

The GUI will now load and you can use either your mouse or keyboard to navigate the screen. Select your language and press Next.

Type in the Hostname for your machine to use and press Next.

Choose your timezone by clicking areas on the map and press Next.

Enter the Root Password for your installation to use. This is the password you will use later to log into the system.

Press Next and the install will start.

Once the installation completes, click Reboot to reboot your machine and boot from your new installation.

You will be presented with the login screen when your machine restarts. Log in with root as the username and the password you set in the earlier install step.

Now your install is complete and your OpenNode system is ready to be used. Before creating any VMs, it’s best to update your system using yum to make sure you have the latest bug fixes and security patches installed. Run the yum command to download and install the latest updates of all your installed packages.

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yum update

The yum application is downloading the latest list of available software and will update them once you have confirmed that you would like to proceed.

Press y and ENTER to download and install the latest version and their dependencies of your installed packages.

The first time you run yum update you will get warning about importing the GBG key. Press y and ENTER to accept.

Finally, you need to reboot to make sure all the new packages are used. Issue the command reboot at the prompt.

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reboot

Wait for the operating system to load and you can start to use your new OpenNode installation. To get started, log back in and issue the command opennode to get started.

OpenNode does does not have a web based GUI installed by default. See my other blog post on setting up the web based GUI.

Over the past few days I have been looking at alternative virtualisation servers to Proxmox VE, something which I have been using for the past few years. This has been prompted by Proxmox’ recent move to subscription based stable repositories and free test repositories. What this means is that unless I pay a subscription, I am no longer allowed to use the stable Proxmox binaries through apt-get and have to use potentially unsafe ‘test’ binaries. Of cause, I could build the latest stable binaries directly from git but then there is another problem – I don’t know what commit is marked as ‘stable’ to use as my build source.

The trouble is, Proxmox is very good and has been around for quite a while under constant development. This means that it is feature rich, supporting two virtualisation methods (OpenVZ and KVM), has native support for many storage backends and has a nice web-based GUI to control it all. Other offerings are plentiful but none do quite the same job as Proxmox.

OpenNode is the closest I can find which is an immature version of Proxmox based on CentOS. It has support for both OpenVZ and KVM as well as a web GUI to administer it. It is a much younger product so don’t expect the same functionality as Proxmox but it’s showing promise and has an active and growing user base.

OpenNode has a few extras, compared with Proxmox, such as a SSH based GUI for downloading and maintaining VM templates (OpenVZ and KVM), adding storage locations and creating new VMs. The command is called opennode and starts a shell based GUI which you can move through with TAB and arrow keys.

Main menu in the TUI, the shell based administration tool.

The KVM template download screen above is quite limited, however the are more up-to-date options for OpenVZ templates.

The web based GUI is hosted on a running OpenVZ container which, using the TUI tool, is registered with the OpenNode system. You can download and register the web based GUI using the TUI utility from the command line.

After logging in with the following:

username = opennode

password = changeme

You will be presented with the home page – I have nothing running at the moment as you can see from the below screen.

As I said previously, this is still a little immature compared with Proxmox – it’s not as feature rich or as polished. That said, it looks after OpenVZ and KVM VMs and makes it very easy to add new templates and edit and create your own. The most understated attribute is the web Terminal – it doesn’t require Java and works like a charm! Combine that with no annoying ‘No valid subscription’ popups and OpenNode is looking more and more appealing.

So… should you ditch Proxmox and make the switch? I’m not sure, but be damn sure to give it a trial.